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Keith sent in an article of his recent trip to Africa where he worked with several species of Eagles.

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South African Eagle Falconry

By: Gordon Keith Denman

I have had the great pleasure of working with some magnificent falconers from South Africa. This story is about the eagles I had the pleasure of working with and enjoyed watching. Eagles are easier to get once you have the experience for use in falconry in South Africa. There are several eagle species and the ability to soar hunt your eagle is easily accomplished in most areas if you can get permission on the property you wish to hunt. Like here in the US, most of South Africa is either government owned or private property.

Here is Francois with his African Hawk eagle, taking the bird out for a quite soar flight and a little work out while he had some extra time. Francois is also working on rehabbing a Booted eagle. On this particular day the bird decided not to soar and to just play around, but was an enjoyment to watch him flying.

I spent nine weeks in South Africa traveling around and being hosted by some exceptional falconers and their families. They were extremely kind and generous with allowing me into their lives. One of these falconers was Dylan who has several eagles for breeding, display and falconry. I had the enjoyment of working with his juvenile female Black eagle and his newly acquire male African Hawk eagle.

I had the pleasure of working with and manning down one of Dylan’s African Hawk eagle (pictured above).

Dylan runs the animal park and does the bird show at Sun City in the Northwest Province. Here is a picture of Dylan’s African Fish eagle female.

This is the African Black Eagle (also known as the Verreaux's Eagle)

I had the great pleasure to work with her, she is such a sweetheart. She is an extremely gentle bird that Dylan took as an eyass. The eagles in South Africa are taken as eyass or for rehab work. They do not like taking passage eagles due to canonization of the young. The eagles kill off the one eyass and only raise one. The African Hawk eagle above was taken due to injury and Dylan took the bird on and he will turn out to be a great falconry bird.

While staying with Dylan we coped the beaks and talons since Dylan had been ill and was unable to get his eagles ready for this falconry season. She asked Dylan for a green card to come back home with me but Dylan would not give her one. I really like this bird.

I know you would like to see what an eagle can take for game. Usually they night hawk rabbits and Jackals or go for Egyptian geese and Francolins. But Ross was working with a rehab Crown eagle and passed it on to another falconer who had more open area to hunt her. She is one big bird and the training and rehabilitation is coming along great with this bird. It has taken a couple of monkeys, ground squirrels which are large like the size of our Fox squirrel here in the States maybe bigger. Also a mongoose with help. This picture tells it all though. Steven is doing an awesome job.

This Steenbok had almost 12 cm long horns and if not a record book Steenbok very close and probably the biggest taken in falconry. I had a great time traveling through South Africa and am working hard to go back for even a longer time.

The picture below is Dylan working with his male African Hawk eagle, the one I had the pleasure to work with. All pictures were taken by me except for the Crown eagle with Steven Squire who took his pictures.

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